


Doctor Who - Colepaldi RPF - Of Goodbyes and Galaxies

by Colepaldi-in-the-Tardis (Samstown4077)



Series: Colepaldi Collection [39]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Humour, Romance, Slight swearing, Suppressed Feelings, TARDIS - Freeform, farewell present, jenna broke something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 22:33:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3626757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samstown4077/pseuds/Colepaldi-in-the-Tardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a tumblr prompt: Jenna breaks something in the Tardis and Peter makes it her farewell present. The thing is, she isn't leaving, is she?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doctor Who - Colepaldi RPF - Of Goodbyes and Galaxies

**Author's Note:**

> Peter stated in an interview that Jenna broke something (a round ball thingy) in the Tardis because she always plays with it, and so this will it be what she will get when she leaves DW.  
> This fic is about the moment she broke it and the moment Peter decides to give her the present. Even though she doesn't leave yet.  
> This is RPF and so it is a fictional story. Don't read if you don't like, sorry for any mistakes, English is not my native.

June, 2014

There was this one particular section of the Tardis console Jenna loved. It had all kind of funny buttons and little switches and in the middle was an oval window thing, like a monitor. Peter never understood why she liked this of all the others most, he mostly fiddled with the levers - but only from time to time.

Jenna loved to fiddle, to push buttons and find her joy in this particular part of the Tardis. The most fun she had with two round oversized marbles. The set designer had told them that he had let them made especially for the console. On of his workers had airbrushed them into little galaxy look-a-likes. They were very smooth and half recessed into a mounting, there, they were fixed and one couldn’t remove them usually, but what you could do was spin them around themselves. So Peter could observe a lot how Jenna’s open palm landed on the blue ball to make circles.

“Why do you do this?” he had asked her once.

She didn’t even knew, that she did it, “Oh, dunno, it feels nice.”

It became one of his little side hobbies, watching Jenna fiddle with one of the galaxy balls - how he called it. Sometimes she used two fingers and spun them as fast as she could. A faint wheezing sound arose when she did so.

He held back all the “toddler” jokes he wanted to say to her, knowing she probably would pout over his remarks, also he saw the inevitable coming, “Hey lass, you going to break my Tardis,” he once had slapped her hands, when she had teased the thing a bit too rough in his opinion. “You not want us to keep stuck in the dark ages or something?”

“Oi!” she chuckled, letting go of the galaxy ball. “For what are these things good anyway? I mean, what do they do?”

She looked at him expectational, because he always knew such nerd knowledge, but to her surprise he only shrugged after frowning long seconds a the console part as if to try to remember. “Fun fact, I don’t know.”

“It must be a big secret then, because you usually know everything about Doctor Who,” she gave the ball one last flick to make it spin again.

“That’s not true,” he reached out to pat her hand away again, but she was quicker.

“Third Doctor era?”

“Uhm, 1970 to 1974!” he answered quick like a shot, followed by a pouting of his lips and a owl like growl he shot at Jenna who gave him a smug smile.

“See! You are a geek!”

“Yeah, I am a fucking geek, so what? You can’t insult me with this. That’s the 21 century. Geek is actually a new job description, I think.”

Jenna ruffled through her long hair, “I know. Didn’t mean it as an insult, Doctor.”

Smiling gently at her, he reached out to brush on askew strand of hair back in position, “I know.”

Before she realized what he had done, he had turned around again over to his little notebook that laid on an other part of the console. It made her wonder for a second, him brushing his fingers through her hair was nothing he usually did. Hugs and cheek kisses, but not something like this. She found herself brushing over the same spot, before shaking the feeling off, her hand already reaching for the galaxy ball again.

_“Jenna-Louise!”_

The use of her actual first name in conjunction with a deep, rough Scottish accent made her jump, her hand retreating behind her back. She couldn’t do anything but glare at him. He didn’t even looked up from his damn notebook and did as if someone else had rebuked her.

“Peter Dougan…,” it was not the most impressive growl she could give, what was hard aside the man who seemed to be the king of growling, but it made him react in his boyish manner. Still not looking he tried to suppress a smile with a purse of his lips that quickly turned into a little smoulder of his.

When she had turned away again, reading the lines in her script, he glanced up, smiling.

_A few days later_

They were in between scenes, rehearsing their text and the actions Peter had to do on the console while Jenna had only hold on to the Tardis in this scene.

Peter whirled around the Tardis with big strides, pushing a button here, sliding one of the mirrors there, _“I'm turning off the safeguards and navigation, slaving the Tardis to you.”_

Jenna didn’t stood by the telepathic interface as she should, but by her favourite part of the console, tapping the galaxy ball again, _“What will we see?”_

Peter saw it in the corner of his eye, flicking some little switches, way to busy to care about it, _“What's under your bed.”_

There was a bit of a silence on set and it was this moment when a sharp cracking sound arose under Jenna’s hands. In unison both their faces turned into the direction of the emergence. When she felt his intense look on her hand she yanked it up, letting it hover in the air afraid to move.

“I think,” she gave Peter a side glance, that he answered with arching one of his attack eyebrows at her. “I think I broke something.”

The best thing about breaking something - for her - was Peter’s face, which went for a little moment haywire and two eyebrows became one. His mouth gaping incredulous at her.

“You broke the galaxy thingy!” he hushed himself down, stepping closer, not without looking over his shoulders to check if anyone else had noticed anything.

“I didn’t break the galaxy thingy!” she shoved his hands aside, that wanted to inspect what she had done. “Leave it, Peter! It’s nothing, I am sure nothing happened.”

He kneaded his hands to deter himself from interact again, what only would make her angry, “Nothing happened? Did you hear that sound? That was an awful sound. Most awful sound ever!”

“Calm down, will yer?” Lately she had noticed that every time she was in a stressful situation she used to imitate his accent. She guessed because it amused herself and when she was around him, that it amused him too. Not this time, he didn’t even noticed. He was all so _‘doctorish’_ worried about his console.

“I bet you can take it out now,” he waved dismissively with his hands.

Jenna wanted to disagree, but she knew better as to say a word. When she had shoved her palm over it, she clearly had felt a slight resistance, she simply had overpowered and had felt it break. She reached for the marble and took it out of the mounting, followed by a shocked gasp from Peter.

“Oops,” the ball was heavy for its size and she weighed it carefully in her hand, afraid it would slip out of her hand to make things worse. They both stared at it for a few seconds, unsure what to do now.

“I knew you would break it!” Peter simply said, all his panic gone, replaced by a certain kind of sadness.

Jenna turned her head, closing her hands around the ball, to conceal the galaxy from his worried looks, “You sound as if I just have accidently killed your dog or something.”

“My Tardis,” he only whined looking all blue over the incident. He shook the feeling off, glancing at Jenna in grumpy disbelieve. “Explain me one thing; how can such tiny hands break something, not even Matt (Smith) could break?”

“Oi, don’t get mean, Mister!” she placed the ball back into the Tardis. “It’s not as if I have set the console room on fire. I broke the thing. Big sorry. Nobody got hurt. End of story.”

He reached for the ball himself and took it out once more, wanting at least to see how the ball looked in its completeness. It really was a fine piece of art. “It actually looks very beautiful.”

Jenna hummed, already knowing the set department wouldn’t be all delighted about the broken part.

Peter juggled with the marble a bit around, all under Jenna’s scared big eyes, “Don’t you break it!”

“For the record, lass; I haven’t broken anything yet, while you have already two victims on your list,” he snickered, remembering an interview she had given, that she had broke something on her first day on set with Matt. She only rolled her eyes at him, wiggling with her head as if to say _‘What ever’._

He gave it one last look and then placed it back into the console, “I think,... when you go… this is what you get.” Peter’s palm rolled over the ball, a bit loose now, but still working.

Startled by his comment, her mouth hung half open for a moment, “What do you mean? When I go?”

He smirked at her questioning face, “When you go,” Jenna still threw an expression of not understanding at him. “Jesus! I ain’t talking about going home or something. When you leave. The show. This is what you get. Your… your farewell present.” His hands spread open, presenting an imaginary present with a wide smile.

Not that she didn’t understood the first time he had said it, it was simply so far away for her to leave the show, that she noticed in shock, that he already thought about a leaving present. He even smiled while talking about it, and this hurt more as it should, knowing he didn’t meant the cheering mood he showed at this moment. Probably just words, she thought.

“Who said I am leaving?”

Her tone had changed essential - from worried to almost angry. Peter’s smile faded away into a stutter of words that he wanted to call an explanation, but he didn’t find the right words quick enough. “I simply… an idea…, that’s all.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No! Hold back your horses! I thought you will one day, I mean we talked about it, you told me you think about leaving at Christmas,” he felt that he already had lost this debate, but was unsure why.

“I said; people will think I’ll leave at the final or at Christmas,” she said. “I never said I’m thinking about leaving at Christmas.”

He rose his hands in defeat, “All right. Cancel the idea! You not gonna get anything,” his words came out harsher as he wanted, but the way she had reacted was not comprehensible for him. “Can we now rehearse the fucking scene?”

“Yes, fuck, we can!”

Later that day, he apologised for his words and she apologised too and told him she might had overreacted and he bit the inner of his lower lip and accepted her apology.

“Do I really get nothing?” she then asked all shy and concerned about the discussion she had kicked off and he looked at her, now biting his lower lip for her to see, all mischievously and taken by her way of asking.

“Surely they will come up with something very pompous, like a life size super fluffy Dalek,” she pushed her open palm softly against his upper arm for this. “I told you already, you’ll get the galaxy thingy.”

“They never gonna give me a part from the Tardis,” she said, and hoped for it of course, but the truth was, the set department was all too protective about everything and it didn’t matter how small or unimportant it was. They didn’t give Matt anything, not even the lever he had broken a few times, instead they had sent it over to the Doctor Who Experience.

“Catch 22,” Peter mumbled, his hands shoved into his pockets. Seeing her eyebrows ask him what he meant, he added, “Stay, and you never find out. Or leave and see. You have to sacrifice one thing at least.”

“Sacrifice?” she repeated in a sarcastic tone. “Such words so heavy with meaning.”

Peter turned away for a second, to look into the distance, already knowing what he wanted to say, he searched for the courage to speak them to her, “Well.”

“Well?”

“What ever you do, it will have an impact. You stay or leave, but there is a chance, it will mean a lot to … someone.”

April 2015

It was her birthday and it was a little tradition so she had received a little cake on set in a filming break. It was a marzipan cake in form of a Cyberman head, on top of it some candles. Peter had got one in form of a Dalek two weeks earlier. It was never a big thing, everyone was busy and they had a lot to do, but the change of routine was of course welcome to everyone and they all congratulated the birthday child.

The crew had always been a big family and one could almost grasp the aura of joy and love that came with a day, someone had birthday. There was a list with all the regular people’s birthday, so there was actually not one week without a cake.

When the day was over later in the evening, Peter found Jenna sitting in the upper part of the staircase of the Tardis, eating a piece of her cake calmly.

“Hey!” he walked up a few stairs and leaned against the handrail, his bag around his shoulders and back in casual cloth, ready to leave for home. “Good?”

Looking up she smirked, “Delicious! Are you heading home?”

“Yes, I am about to do so, I have only one duty left for today,” he fiddled with the clasp of his bag. “Not a duty, more … like a pleasure.”

Jenna watched him open his bag and rummaged around a bit, trying to get something out of it. To light came a box wrapped in dark blue paper. For a few seconds he held it with his fingertips looking at it with a smile that told her he was proud of something here. What it was, she couldn’t tell yet, maybe the wrapping, she thought.

Then his eyes fell on her and he held it out to her, “Happy Birthday.”

This was the last thing she had expected, a personal present from him. Leaning back a bit she starred in turns between him and the box. “For me?”

“Yes, it’s your birthday,” he still had the box in hand and sank down to sit, unaware of the picture he produced.

Jenna smirked, this only could happen to Peter at all. Him holding out a box, going down in front of her, “Are you going to propose?”

He chuckled heartily, not without blushing, “Not exactly,” he glanced at the box, that was clearly bigger as a ring box. “Take it now, or I’ll change my mind and propose to Steven.”

Quickly she took the present out of his hands, “No, don’t do that, he will say _‘yes’_ in the end.”

The both shared a cackling laughter, before Jenna regarded him and the box with an impish expression on her face, then she pushed all etiquettes aside and ripped the paper away. Under all the paper there was a cardboard box - also in blue. “What is this?”

“Open it.”

Carefully she eased the top from the lower part. With a slight popping sound the cap separated from the rest, revealing the inside. Jenna needed a second, in the dim light of the Tardis to understand the content, but when she did, her mouth fell open and she gapped at the thing.

“But…,” her head shot up an she glanced over to the console, then to Peter. “The galaxy thingy!”

Peter couldn’t remember when it was the last time that he had watched someone with such delight opening a present to find something one never had reckoned with. The surprise for her was a full success. “The galaxy thingy.”

Awed she took the blue marble out of the box, “But that is not possible, I…,” she stood up, walking down the stairs toward the part of the console where the ball should be. In the console nothing was missing. “They replaced it?”

“Yeah,” he had followed her. “I’d made them replace it.”

“You’d made them replace it?” she tested the new ball, finding it was now back in place and she was unable to take it out. Jenna rolled her present in her palms. “I don’t understand.”

Nervously he tucked some imaginary lint from his jumper, “As I said, it’s your birthday.”

“I thought that would be my farewell present?” she held the ball up a bit.

“I just said that in the interview,” he shrugged, leaning casually against the console, but it couldn’t hide the fact that something was with him. Jenna knew him all too well. “Aside, how stupid is that, giving someone a present for leaving. Sounds like a fucking celebration!”

Now she knew clearly something was bothering him, he only headed for swear words when he tried to hide his emotions.

“Actually I thought, the present is more a reminder for the person who leaves,” Jenna smirked and he pursed his lips while thinking it through from this point of view.

He sighed exasperated, “I made them replace it month ago, Jenna.”

Now she understood. She never had noticed, because she never took the ball out, just played with it. “You thought-”

“-Of course I thought you leave at Christmas. So I made them replace it and then you came up and changed your mind and so I had this thing at home all these month. I couldn’t place it back, could I?”

“Guess not,” Jenna smiled guiltily at him.

“And anyway, yer not going to get a present from _me_ when yer leave,” he snapped, hoping Jenna would snap back, but she didn’t and simply waited till he went on. “There’s nothing to celebrate when you leave.”

“You don’t like the thought, that I _will_ leave, do you?” she fiddled placed her hand onto the console.

Peter shifted, shoved one hand through his rather long fluffy curls, then he grinned, placing the hand on the lever, the one for starting the Tardis, and for a moment Jenna believes he is the Doctor and will start the machine to whisk her away - forever. As swiftly he had grabbed for the lever, he let go off it again and stepped away toward her. “It’s a thing you gotta do.”

His answer disappointed her, and she showed it to him with a weary smile and a turn of her head.

“Lass, I’m not gonna say it,” he licked his lips, mischief in his eyes. “Not gonna say, I gonna miss you. Gonna admit we had the best of times. Rather travel alone for a while, instead looking for a replacement. I’m not gonna say I…”

“You?”

He inhaled a few times, starring up to the Tardis ceiling with all the plates in Gallifreyan. “There, look!” he darted out his arm, and pointed up. “There is Rose Tyler, and there is Martha and Jack, and all the others.”

Jenna looked up, eyeing the circles and dots and the foreign words. “I thought, that’s just made up stuff and no names.”

“So you speak Gallifreyan now?”

“You?”

“Well, damn, yes,” he grabbed her shoulders making her look up, following his outstretched arm. “And I gonna make them write,” he whispered then. “‘From Peter to Jenna;” their eyes met for a moment and he was distracted but he fast looked away, all too shy, staring at the engravings, while she stared at him, “I hate to see you go!’”

It made her look up. She imagined it, the words in Gallifreyan, however they would look, how they would circle the Tardis core. A message in plain sight - of course it would be impossible, for many reasons, wouldn’t it?

They stood there for a bit, till Peter moved away, eyeing her, smiling, already missing her, and when she glanced at him, he quickly did as if he needed to correct a few buttons on his console. It amused her and she looked at him so long that he started to wonder if she had malfunctioned and he shifted nervously on the spot, “What?”

Then a smile spread over her face when she stepped up to him and flung herself around his neck to make him bow, for a tight hug. For a moment he didn’t know what to do, because he hadn’t seen this coming, but then he just leaned in, hugging her back, “What’s that for?”

“For being a great friend,” she mumbled into his shirt.

“But I didn’t do anything,” he laughed slightly, still in her embrace.

She sniffled, he could clearly hear it. “Shut up.”

“Yes, boss,” and so he just held her.

They both knew, it was a goodbye present in advance. That he had it at home with the intention to keep it there, till she would finally depart from the show, but every time he saw the thing he had started to imagine how it would be.

Like, him totally awkward giving her the galaxy thingy in front of everybody. There would be this little happening after the last scene of her. Steven would says something and then he would give her the thingy and would say something very generous and all, because there would be a film camera and he would do as if it bothered him that she left, but not too much. Just the right mixture for the people and the camera. All professional.

It was all in his head, the whole scene already painted like a prophecy and he hated it. Like a fixed point in time and then he had came up with a plan, late at night when he couldn’t sleep because of all of it. Not to erase the fixed point, but, what would happen that day.

He _would_ say some eloquent and generous words and Steven _would_ give a speech and Jenna too, but this one present, this little ball, this - in his eyes - so personal present that came with this so special moment, with this hug, this conversation - was now preserved. Locked.

It was her birthday, - she would never forget, and so wouldn’t he.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading this. I would love to read a comment or you can leave a kudo! I publish on regular basis.


End file.
